For starters, it would help us in charting our social future to have a better sense just how big today's Big Businesses have become.

It is therefore tempting to consider that as a way of preventing vast corporate entities from disguising their true size and reach, we might require that on any product that is offered for sale, the name of the parent company should always appear in letters at least the same size as the name of the subsidiary or "brand name" company.

Most of us would probably have different internal maps of our socioeconomic landscape if we shopped among more plainly labeled Beatrice Foods (Samsonite) suitcases and American Express (Firemen’s Fund) insurance policies, Avon Products (Tiffany) jewels and Westinghouse (CBS (Steinway)) pianos. 

We might also be more attuned to the scope of today's mega-enterprises if we could see on a daily basis that when we snap up the latest thriller at Crown Books, the money goes to the same place as when we buy windshield wiper blades at Trak Auto;  that the profits from a Bulova watch go to the same company as the proceeds from our stay at a Loew’s hotel;  that purchasing Dad’s Root Beer enriches the same company as installing a Midas muffler;  and that our money ultimately goes to the same bottom line no matter whether we buy a Sara Lee cake, an Electrolux vacuum cleaner, or L’eggs hosiery—all of which are in turn financially equivalent to eating at a Lyons restaurant.

For that matter, maybe we shouldn’t stop at just parent companies.  Maybe we ought to require displaying the names of a corporation’s primary investors, in essentially the same way that major players are touted in movie credits—"A Warren Buffet Company," "Kirk Kerkorian Presents," and so forth.